


between the hill and the river

by pennyproud



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 15:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10389966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennyproud/pseuds/pennyproud
Summary: He’s always thinking about Dex, these days; it’s like when he had gotten lost on the trains when he was home one summer, and a man had pointed to a station in the middle of the map and explained, “Everything leads back here.”He turns and sees Will cupping his hands around his mouth, whooping as one of his compsci mentors does a truly ugly two step across the stage. The sun is shining onto his hair, not through it, and he’s smiling in a way Derek never thought he would allow himself to.Everything leads back here, Derek thinks. His fingers are tingling from how Dex had filled his arms when they hugged each other goodbye.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i had to delete all the emojis. i'm so sorry.

_ “i grew up in this town, my poetry was born  _ _ between the hill and the river _ _ , it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”  _

**_Pablo Neruda_ **

* * *

 

Graduation is hard on Derek.

It always has been, he cries at every one he goes to, because, well—change isn't good for him.

He spent his childhood with his forehead pressed to a glass window, talking to his abuela through a phone with too much static, like she wasn't soft on the inside and made of flowers, like God wasn't afraid when he put her on this Earth that she might outshine the stars. She gets deported in the dead of night and it breaks Derek's heart into fucking pieces. He drapes a Cuban flag over his dreams, now.

Change isn't good for him.

He spends his teenage years driving around a town that's too small for him in a car with no doors. His hand is so dark in the summer, and when Momma and Ma started arguing he stopped going home, so this is life. His dark hands and the blue sky and a stretch of dread so deep in his stomach that it threatens to spill over and make stains on everything he loves. When he graduates high school, it's scary and he cries and all he can think, as his roommate claps him on the back and walks out their door for the last time, is This is it.

And maybe it's because Ma found the pills he was going to take when he was twelve (and thirteen, and fourteen), so he never really planned to make it this far. Maybe it's because he had sat through so many dinners where everyone said, "We know you can do better, Derek." And they all refused to accept that he didn't think he could do better, and who the fuck called him a genius anyway, everyone's a genius in grade school, right?

Derek places the book Momma had given him when he was ten into the last box he has left. The room is empty, both beds bare and the wind ruffling the white curtains. He looks into the corner and sees his initials staring back at him, an act done in a moment of need for something real, something solid.

He takes a deep breath in through his nose and he leaves the feeling of something solid behind.

Graduations have always been hard on him.

But Ransom's was like a death. It was like he was at a funeral, but he still cheers with the rest of Ransom's family and the team when they call his name. He looks at the empty seats in the courtyard during the final speech; thinks about all the lives that are stalled, thinks about the calls all the kids who owned the empty seats had to make. He thinks about how much Dex had said summer classes cost. He’s always thinking about Dex, these days; it’s like when he had gotten lost on the trains when he was home one summer, and a man had pointed to a station in the middle of the map and explained, “Everything leads back here.”

He turns and sees Will cupping his hands around his mouth, whooping as one of his compsci mentors does a truly ugly two step across the stage. The sun is shining onto his hair, not through it, and he’s smiling in a way Derek never thought he would allow himself to.

Everything leads back here, Derek thinks. His fingers are tingling from how Dex had filled his arms when they hugged each other goodbye.

-

@dmnurse: i'm in the house i grew up in, staring @ my ceiling, thinking about home.   
21 retweets, 34 likes

@willjdexter: @dmnurse You're at home.

@dmnurse: @willjdexter home's not a place dexy

-

**will** , 10:24pm

_ If home's not a place _ _  
_ _ What is it _

 

**Nurse** **,**  10:25pm   
_ idk _ _  
_ _ Maya angelou said the ache for home lives in all of us _

 

**will** , 10:26pm   
_ Nurse. _   
  


**Nurse**

_ yeah? _

 

**Nurse**

_ Dex?? _

 

**will**   
_ Sometimes you're too much for your own good _

-

"I can't believe the fucking dock got shut down." Dex mumbles to himself.

"C'mon, little brother, it'll be your first free summer since you were thirteen." Katie answers, rubbing her knuckle lovingly into the crown of his head. She's shorter than him, usually, but she has on heels she can’t walk in and pajama shorts. It's a bit comical, and Will brushes her off to ask what the hell she has on. "It's for this party next week," She explains. The air tenses, and Will raises an eyebrow as she fiddles with the hem of her shorts. "It's, um, it's Aiden's party, is all." Katie explains, and—oh.

Oh.

Will takes a long sip of his lemonade and lets the summer seep into him for a minute.

When he was sixteen, this moment would have reminded him of Aiden, of his soft hands and slippery words and the way he held Will so tight, until he just — let go. And, sure, Will can be bitter (and petty, that was Chowder's new favorite word for him and Nursey) and bring up how him and Aiden ending and Aiden and someone else beginning had kind of...overlapped, but the past is the past. His knuckles are white on the grip of his cup and he has to count to four waiting for the color to return to them. The past is the past.

"Billy, if you want me not to go—"

"No, no, Kates, are you kidding," Will breathes out all at once— and, God, is this how Nursey feels all the time, pretending to be okay with things— "Do whatever you want." He looks back out the window until the sounds of his sister's heels clacking against the hardwood floor fades away. There's a stutter in her steps near the bottom of the stairs and Will rolls his eyes. "Just wear some fucking flats, Kate!"

"Fuck off, Goat Boy!" Will laughs to himself.

::

Sometimes Derek gets too caught up in himself, which he would never admit, because he has an image to uphold.

He goes three days without leaving his room.

His floor is a mess of crumpled notebook pages and crossed out words and empty pens, so many empty pens, Ya Allah, do they even make quality pens anymore, and—

His phone rings and it's like the whole world comes back into some weird focus. Fuzzy around the edges, but there. Suddenly, more was in existence than his empty pens and blank pages.

An ugly picture of Dex lights up Nursey's screen, and he smiles to himself. It's dark outside, but the summer heat is still rolling into his room in waves. "Hello?" Derek answers, probably sounding more like a nature man than someone who's spent three days straight writing (but those were pretty close).

"You're alive," Dex replies, after letting a long moment draw out between them.

"You sound disappointed." Derek says, squinting at the time his clock shows. 2AM? Will snorts.

"Mildly." He says, but Derek can hear the little smirk that's playing with the corner of his lips. "Three days this time, Nursey." Derek groans and lets his head bang against his desk. Will laughs, a little thing he doesn't want to let escape so late at night.

"I had no idea. It felt like min—"

"Like  _ minutes _ , I know." Will finishes.

"Are you rolling your eyes?" Derek asks, laughing a little. Everything is funny after 1am. Will chuckles, and it creates a static against the receiver that fills Nursey's stomach. (When was the last time he ate?)

_ Everything leads back here _ , Derek thinks, even though he doesn't know why.

"Guess you'll never know." Dex answers, taking in an amused breath. Derek can hear him shuffling in bed. He has his own room, because he's the only boy, and Nursey remembers how much Dex loved it the solidarity of it.

For some reason, it makes Derek's heart feel heavy when he thinks of Will thinking of that room as home.

Derek remembers a quote from a book he read his freshman year of high school. "Well, sometimes home is a person." He says, and Will snorts.

"What are you on about now?"

_ “I want to be your home,” _ Derek almost says.  _ “I want your everything to lead back to me.” _ Instead, Nursey shakes his head, then, remembering Dex is miles away, homes away, he says into the receiver, "Nothing."

-

FROGS, NO TEA

 

**chowder** , 1am   
_ omg you guys!!!!!!!! _ _  
_ _ the proud family movie is on Friday!!!!!!! _

 

**Nurse** **,**  1:02am   
_ ALLAH IS ... SO GOOD TO ME _

 

**will**   
_ I've ?? never seen that lol _ _  
_ _ We didn't have cable when I was younger _

 

**chowder ,** **  
**_ :( ((((( _ **  
** _ its iconic!!!! _

 

**Nurse** ,   
if u didnt have cable how did u watch x files reruns after school

 

**chowder**

_ Nursey i love the concept but normal kids didn't do that after school !!!!! _ _  
_ _ why didn’t you watch arthur like the rest of us Derek!!!! _

 

**will**

_ Drag him _

::

@ _ dmnurse _ : i hate my friends

@ _ callmelard _ : @ _ dmnurse _ same ‼️

@ _ dmnurse _ : @ _ callmelard _ miss u chica wica 

::

**_HOCKEY IS LIFE: 2015_ **

 

**will**   
_ Wica _

 

**chowder**   
_ *Chica wica _

 

**Nurse**   
_ FUCK OFFFF _

 

**rans**

_ I love the Spanglish lil bro #keep it up - r _

 

**Nurse**   
_ thanks bro _

_ lardo's chica wica and dex es gringo wingo _

 

**will**   
_ Full offense, _ _  
_ _ I hope u die slow _

-

"So..." Dex says later, the word drawn out and dripping over the silence they had let sit between them on the call. "That movie Chowder was talking about is, like, coming on soon."

"24 whole hours is soon?" Derek muses, doodling something into the crease of his elbow and letting the dust of their library settle around him.

"I mean, I just thought that maybe..." Dex stops for a second, takes a shallow breath. "Maybe you could come down here and we could like, watch it together or whatever." A pause. "I don't know." Will finishes weakly, and Derek can almost hear him messing with his ear like he always does when he's nervous and fuck, he's so gone off this dumb boy.

"Yeah," Derek says, a tender scratch edging his voice. He clears his throat. "That'd be cool."

"You mean chill?" Dex offers as something mischievous leaks into his words.

Derek groans.

-

Telling his moms he's leaving isn't the hard part. The hard part is them letting him go. Momma keeps patting him down and looking him over and worrying, Ya Allah, she worries too much.

"You'll get wrinkles." Ma sings into her ear, kissing her wife's dark cheek and turning to her son. "Be safe, okay, mijo?" Derek nods and kisses both of them on the forehead. Momma clutches her chest.

"Oh, he's so old, now. So tall, like a skyscraper!" Derek's Momma whines, her accent peeking through. Derek rolls his eyes and pushes her inside.

There's a still moment when it's just him and Ma, on the front steps of their brownstone. She has a sad leftover of a smile on her face, and Derek knows what’s coming, because it's come every time he's left the house since—he stops himself and tapes back over the box that belonged to memories of his older brother.

"If you get pulled over give them your registration and your license and remember to say 'Yes, Sir' and, Derek, listen to me, if they take you away make sure you call me, okay?" She says, layering a certain kind of emptiness Derek has never been able to place over her words. "You call me first." Derek nods, and wraps her up in a tight hug. He can feel her shaking when he lets go.

"Love you, Ma." Derek says, before turning and getting into his car.

-

Will wrings his hands and looks in the bathroom mirror again, letting the gentle light of the early morning float into the cramped room. 3 of his 5 sisters are here for the summer, and it's almost like he's eleven again, Katie and Kinsey making too much noise upstairs and his Mother yelling for them all to be quiet. Except, he's twenty (which,  _ whoa _ ) and his stomach is in knots over the arrival of his friend.

"Your friend, Will." He says to himself under his breath, and Kinsey pops open the door and stares at him.

"Your friend?" She repeats, and Will can feel his face heating up. Kinsey raises her dark brown eyebrows and opens her mouth to form a perfect "o," her standard making fun of Will face. "Who's this friend, Billy Goat?" She sings, leaning into the doorframe. Will looks away and shoves his toothbrush into his mouth. "Jesus Christ," She muses, crossing her tan arms. Florida had been good to her complexion; she always burned the least out of all of them. "You got it that bad?" Will chokes on the toothpaste, but when he looks up to yell at his sister, she's gone.

For the rest of the day, Will thinks. He wonders if someone would look at him and say Samwell had done him good, if he had changed and become everything he had ever hoped. He remembers himself, in what feels like a past life, fifteen and afraid and staring at the roses in his closet like they were diamonds instead of mortal beings, just like him. He doesn't think about when the petals will fall off, because maybe he's resigned to thinking he'll never been out the dark long enough to see them bloom again. Maybe Dex was a rose and Samwell was the sun.

He looks at his reflection in his windowsill, the sky dark and the moon beating down upon his small town, and he sees someone different. Maybe his skin still fries in the summer sun, but he doesn't feel burnt out anymore. He hears Nursey's voice in his head. If home is a person, Will is his own home, now, and that is a luxury he never thought he would have.

He keeps staring out the window, drifting off until his phone buzzes in his hand.

**Nurse** **,**  7:03pm   
_ i'm outside?? _

Will opens his eyes up wider, and sees a car he could never afford parked in his driveway. Despite his best efforts to remain calm, his heart clutches when he sees Nursey's face look up at the house. He looks so...relieved, and Dex can feel his heart doing that weird dance in his chest. He hears Kinsey in his head. "You got it that bad?"

Derek takes a picture of some of the flowers on Dex's porch.

_ Yeah _ , Will thinks to himself as he gets up to lead Nursey inside,  _ I do. _

-

Derek likes the Poindexter house. He likes how Will looks in it, outlined by the dust floating off the various shrines to their family. There's a moment where they stop in threshold of the front door, and Will's big ears are fuzzed out from the warm light behind him, and all Derek can do is drink him in.

Sometimes he gets an ache in his fingertips looking at Dex, and it runs through the center of his spine and paralyzes him. Now is one of those moments.

Will looks so comfortable, in a t-shirt that's hanging off his shoulder and some sweatpants that had been cut into shorts. The drawstring on them is pulled taut and tied into bunny ears, and, yeah, thinking about Dex concentrating to make the ears would be the death of Derek. Will smirks, a little thing that barely crosses his face before he's stepping out the way to let Derek in.

They walk past the living room, where Dex's sisters are all sitting, pretending not to be interested in their little brother's college friend. Will rolls his eyes and gestures to Nursey with the hand he doesn’t have on his elbow. "Everyone, this is Derek." He announces. Derek waves, and puts on the smile his Moms make him use when he's meeting Important People.

"Hi, Derek!" They all call out, drawing out the "Hi," as long as they can, and raising their eyebrows. None of them are red heads, like Dex, and Derek thinks it's funny how much Will stands out, even among his family. He thinks it funny how much Will stands out all the time.

"Hi, everyone." Derek answers, and the smallest one presses a manicured hand to her chest.

"His voice is so deep." She whispers loudly, which Derek didn't even realize was possible. Will's face heats up as the rest of them nod in agreement, and he tugs on Derek's elbow to lead him out of the room. Nursey waves them all goodbye and ignores the knowing look they're all sharing.

"They're..." Will trails off, looking everywhere but Nursey in the hallway coming off the living room. It's cramped, with picture frames jutting into the space, and a collection of Poindexter trophies lining the walls. "They're annoying." He finishes, staring at the ground and trying to will his face to cool down.

Derek laughs. "They're nice. And pretty." He pauses, thinks over what to say. "They look like you." Will looks at Derek with a surprised expression.

"I, um, I think you’re pr—"

"Billy Goat, your movie is on!" A voice yells into the hallway, and Will turns to respond, tearing his eyes away from Nursey.

"We'll watch it downstairs!" Will yells back, and he tugs Derek down the rest of the hallway and towards a door. "Turn on that light." Derek pats against the wall blindly until he feels the light switch and flicks it on.

The Poindexter basement isn’t much, and the computer that’s on the desk is from, like, when Miley Cyrus was making her first comeback, but it’s nice. The rug is clean and the couch isn’t a toxic waste hazard like the one in the Haus, so Derek likes it. “Are you hungry?” Will says, cutting through Nursey taking in his surroundings.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He answers, and Dex nods before turning and going back up the steps, stopping at the bottom to tell Nursey he’ll be right back.

So Derek’s alone.

Being alone in anyone’s house for the first time is scary, and Derek counted it as one of the seven main places where reality noticeably shifted (like rest stops at midnight and Walmart on the morning of mother’s day), but it was even worse because everything was Dex. Had he spent his high school years curled up on the couch, watching The Sandlot to try and cheer him up after he lost a game? There’s a rack of DVDs and VHS tapes collecting dust on some shelves in the corner, and Derek finds himself drifting towards them.

Lo and behold, there’s a DVD case for The Sandlot on top the shelf, like Dex had been planning to watch it earlier. The Sandlot was a part of his rainy day routine, and Will had seemed happy-ish a second ago. Derek is still wondering what happened when Will comes back downstairs, his arms full with food. “Our card just got reloaded, so you came at a good time.”

“What card?” Derek asks, reaching out to take a bag of chips from his arms.

“Food stamps.” Dex answers, like it’s nothing. He supposes it is nothing. If the stories Will told him are true, then his family needed the money, and they weren’t wrong for spending it. “Usually Mom buys a bunch of stuff so she can cook, but I told her you were coming so she got some junk, too.” Derek nods, thinks of what to say.

“My Ma used to get food stamps, too.” He finally speaks up, opening the bag and offering some to Will. Dex sticks his arm in and nods. “When she lived in the projects.” Will furrows his eyebrows together.

“That’s, like, public housing, though, right?” Will asks. Derek laughs.

“Only my Momma had money growing up.” Derek turns on the TV and searches for Disney Channel. It’s been awhile since he watched it, if he’s being honest. “It was hard for Momma, too, though, cause she’s Muslim. She stopped wearing her hijab after--” Derek cuts himself off and clicks on the right channel. “Found it!” Penny Proud jumps on screen, in the middle of a scene to which Will has no context. “Okay, so, Penny wants to be a spare change dancer, but her Dad, Oscar, won’t let her.” Will hums. “That dude she’s in the car with is 15 cent, he’s, like, a big deal.” Dex laughs.

“That’s like 50 cent, right?” Will asks, and Derek giggles.

“Yeah.”

-

“Was something wrong before I got here?” Derek asks in the middle of the dance scene, and Will stops laughing to himself, in that way that he had hoped Derek wouldn’t see.

“What?” He asks.

“You had The Sandlot out, and that’s your I’m sad movie.” Derek explains, turning to face Will. Dex’s cheeks turn a ballet pink, and Nursey puts his hands behind his head to stop himself from reaching out for the red head.

“Nothing, just—It was nothing.”

“C’mon, Dexy, we’re friends, right?” Derek presses, raising his eyebrows and leaning down his head to look at Will’s face as it turns towards the floor. “You can--”

“My sisters are going to some party tonight and it’s…it’s at my ex’s house.” Then, to cover up how small he had sounded, “Or whatever.” Derek nods and watches the movie for a second, and Dex almost starts an argument with him because what the fuck? If you ask someone what’s wrong, you should at least try to comfort them, right?

“Have you tried telling them not to go?” Derek finally says. Dex scoffs and crosses his legs underneath him.

“No, they don’t know that he’s my ex.” Will says, releasing a resigned breath from his nose. Derek keeps looking at the screen, but all the colors are kind of melting together and words keep swirling around his head in that way that they do sometimes when he forgets to eat because he was writing. Except, instead of lines of poetry or pictures he was trying to turn into pages, it was one word. He. Him. A boy.

“Are you…out?” Nursey asks, after letting the pronouns swim in his head. Dex nods his head.

“But I told them after me and him broke up, so they just think he’s, like, a friend who I fell off with.” Derek hums.

“Well, maybe you  _ should  _ go.”

“Nurse--”

“I mean, flex on him a little, show him what he’s missing out on, he’ll have no idea what hi--”

“Derek, stop!” Dex yells, and Nursey clamps his mouth shut. “I said no, leave it alone!” It’s maybe the third time Will has ever raised his voice at his defense partner since the end of freshman year, when they had decided to do their best to deal with each other, for Chowder’s sake. Derek doesn’t shrink, or stutter, he just nods.

“Sorry, man.” Then, almost an hour later, “I go too far.” Will nods. Derek wants to say,  _ “I’m sorry I always go too far and say too fucking much,” _ But he just nods back, and goes back to looking at the screen.

Two hours later, Will has managed to drag Derek upstairs, to the guest room his parents had made out of his two oldest sister’s shared room. It had always been the nicest one, awarded to Morgan and Christie because they were the oldest. Katie and Kinsey had wanted to take it after the oldest two left, but their mother had had different plans. There was nearly a war at Thanksgiving that year. Derek laughs as Will explains this to him, peeling off his shirt and looking at the patio doors. “That’s what made it so nice.” Will explains, fondly. “Morgan and Chris wouldn’t let anyone on the balcony, they used to sneak the people they were dating in through there and Kate and Kins were  _ so _ jealous.”

“You weren’t?” Derek asks, his voice heavy with a need for sleep even though he’s opening the door to the balcony. Will pauses and swallows the lump in his throat.

“Nah, Aidan’s parents were never home, I didn’t have to sneak anyone in here when I could just go there.” Derek nods as he steps outside. “But we broke up when we were, like, in between senior and junior year, and I figured it would just be easier to wait until college to try again.”

“What about Leah?” Derek asks. Will furrows his eyebrows together. “Was she jealous?” Dex snorts.

“No, Leah’s gay. She totally snuck in girls pulling that ‘She’s just my friend’ shit. It was kinda genius.” Will explains as he sits down next to Nursey on one of the chairs on the balcony. “Perks of the closet I guess.” Nursey still doesn’t say anything, and Dex looks over to see if he’s awake. He’s staring back. “Y’know, the roses and the getting away with things.”

“The roses?” Nursey sounds surprised, and Will tilts his head.

“Yeah, it’s, like, from a book or something, I think?” Dex realizes how dumb he must sound, not knowing which piece of literature an idea was from. Nursey was an English major and he never let anyone forget it, so Will braces himself for the chirping to come.

“America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.” Derek erupts suddenly, his words heavy with purpose.

“What does that have to do with what— “

“America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry,” Nursey continues, still staring off at nothing. His Adam's apple bobs in his throat and Will gets this longing in the lining of his stomach to be the reason Derek gets like this. He wants to be the reason he ignores the world and he wants Nursey to look into space thinking of him. 

_ “Make me poetry.” _ Dex almost says, but Nursey keeps talking, and his voice feels like when Will had run outside to see the sun cover the moon. Will’s mother had told him to look away but he had always been bad at doing the right thing.

“I smoke marijuana every chance I get,” He says, and it makes him giggle. Will’s heart hurts. “I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.” He finally turns to face Dex when he says roses, and his eyes are so full Will almost pulls back. “And, at the end, he says— ‘America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.’”

“Oh,” Dex finally replies, and it’s not enough, but what can ever be enough for the way the moon hits the green in Nursey’s eyes, what can ever be enough for the span of his hand covering the whole of Will’s heart and, God, this is so gay. He’s so gay. Nursey laughs, a small thing that echoes in Will’s head for minutes afterwards. “You keep those—you memorize them?” Will presses, allowing himself the luxury of his scanning over the tightness of Nursey’s jaw. He wants to reach out and run his fingertips on it, wants to leave his mark in case he burns up in the heat of Derek’s presence, wants to leave fingerprints on Nursey so they know why he’s dead.

Nursey nods and smiles drunkenly. Will can tell the difference because when he’s drunk his smiles are almost always bitter. He wonders where all that anger goes when Nursey is sober. He never asks. Derek turns to him again. “I don’t like to forget things that matter, Will.” He says, and his voice raises the hairs at the nape of Will’s neck and sets a fire in the space between his ribs.

“We should go to sleep.” Dex blurts, standing up and going back inside. Nursey scoffs but Will ignores it, because he doesn’t want to fight, not when he’s this weak in the knees. Derek doesn’t come inside until midnight, stumbling onto the ground next to Dex. He mumbles something about applesauce, maybe, and Will holds his breath until he hears Derek’s soft snores fill the tiny room.

-

They wake up late the next day, and Dex takes Nursey to the only good diner in town. They walk instead of drive, because gas is expensive and Nursey’s car looks crazy among this cozy little town. On the way back home, Derek spots a rusted playground that had mainly been forgotten since they had built that new one across town. “It’s rustic, Dex.”

“It’s tetanus waiting to happen, Nurse.” Will replies, but he sits down on a swing anyway. There’s initials scratched into the chipping yellow paint on the poles, and Dex looks away when he sees his own.

“Dex, look!” Derek laughs out, and he’s doing pull ups on the monkey bars that are much too small for a 6’2 hockey player. But Will is watching the way his muscles move in his t-shirt, flexing, and, God, Will knows this sounds corny, but they’re rippling. Dex grips the chain on his swing a little tighter, looks at Nursey’s big smile as he exerts way too much energy into this weird show of strength. “You proud?” Derek asks lifting up his arm to flex full out. Will swallows a lump in his throat.

“Whatever, asshole.”

-

Apparently, Nursey’s version of The Sandlot is Love and Basketball, and they’re five minutes in when Dex’s phone rings. Nursey groans and throws some popcorn at his head. “Hello?” Will says into the receiver while swatting at Nursey’s shoulder.

“Billy, can you come get me?” Leah breathes into the receiver and Dex is pulling on a jacket before she can even explain what happened. “My ride bailed on me and this party is the fucking worst, I hate this fucking town, I want to come home.” She might be crying, but Will assures her he’s on his way and hangs up, tells her he loves her and everything. Derek is standing, too, with his keys in his hand. He throws them to Dex and nods.

“Let’s go, then.”

-

Leah’s supposed to be waiting for them on the step of Aidan’s far too big house, but she’s nowhere to be found in the throng of smokers and people waiting for rides. Worry swells in Will’s chest, and he pops open the driver’s seat door and jumps out. Nursey stops the cars and locks it before running in after him.

It’s not the same as the party at the Haus, or even the ones that the English majors throw. It’s foreign, and smelly, and watching the kids he went to highschool with grinding on each other is a brutal throwback to homecoming, which Will had spent at home, Leah wrapped in his arms, her tears making his shirt stick to his skin. Dances kind of lost their appeal after that. Will thinks that if all he was missing was a bunch of suburban kids grinding to a song they pretended they were too good for, then he was good.

His phone goes off in his pocket, and he recognizes Kinsey’s number when he looks at it. He presses the phone to his ear and finds a place that’s semi-quiet by a bar that’s across from a giant TV Will used to think was  _ so  _ cool. “Leah’s with us.” Kinsey says right away, and Will releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I guess she forgot she called you, she’s pretty messed up, I think she saw Yvette?” Dex groans. Fucking Yvette, the second coming of Satan, the reason for almost all of high school Leah’s tears. “But she’s fine, now, we’re on our way home.”

“That party fucking sucks, too, so your ass better be coming through the door in an hour!” Katie yells, presumably from the driver’s seat. He can hear Leah groan out her approval from what’s probably the backseat.

“Whatever, I’ll see you later.” Kinsey says she loves him and Leah yells an apology before they hang up. Will pulls on Derek’s arm. “Let’s go, Leah’s fine.” Nursey nods when a familiar voice rings over the bar and sends something shooting down Will’s spine.

“Billy!” Aidan yells, and Dex freezes. He kind of blacks out for a minute or two after that, his hand still on Nursey’s arm and his feet moving without really moving, like he had just gotten out of a wave pool. When he comes back to, what he hears makes him want to black out again.

“You’re…Billy’s boyfriend?” Aidan sounds so confused that Will has to close his eyes, clench and unclench his fist a few times. When he opens them again, Nursey’s nodding, smiling his fake smile, and, well, he’s always been a better liar out of the two of them.

“Since Valentine’s Day.” Derek supplies, looking and Will for reassurance. Dex nods along, maybe a little too much.

“His birthday! It was super romantic.” Dex says, swatting Nursey’s arm playfully and internally feeling his organs try to stomp their way out. Derek smiles and puts an arm around Will’s shoulder, and it’s so warm, and big, and—

“I’m actually a writer.” Nursey says, and Dex is already groaning in his head at the smug look on Aidan’s face.

“Must not make a lot of money, huh?” Aidan replies, tilting his head a little to fake sympathy. Dex rolls his eyes.

“No, actually, I got published and paid for the first time when I was fifteen. Since then I’ve just been choosing lit mags, working on my debut.” Aidan flounders. “Besides, it’s not like I need the money, anyway.”

“You know that lawsuit against McDonald’s for the coffee? That was totally Derek’s Ma’s firm.” Will jumps in, smiling up at Nursey in a way that he hopes help convey that he’s standing somewhere between grateful and horrified. Suddenly, everyone at the bar is turned to them, and Derek smiles back with dazzling, thousand dollar teeth.

Will loses him somewhere in the crowd after that, Derek swallowed by a throng of small town people amazed by all his accomplishments. Dex wanders around the house he had basically lived in when he was sixteen, running his fingers over the bumpy plaster and recalling memories he had told himself were better to forget. Something creaks behind him and he whips around, his face screwed up in determination. Unfortunately for Will, who had been expecting a murderer, it was Aidan.

He’s smiling in that way that used to make Will’s stomach do backflips, but now it just makes him feel like he ate one of the bad chicken tenders in the dining hall. “Why are you snooping around my house?” Will rolls his eyes.

“Look, if you want me to fight with you, I’m not here to—” Aidan takes two giant steps forward until he’s right in Dex’s space, and he smells like Axe, and they’re kissing.

Something in Dex stirs, maybe happiness, because Aidan is here and he wants him and—

There’s a laugh downstairs that raises above the carbon copied sounds of parties across the world. It’s Nursey, and Aidan is sliding a hand up Dex’s shirt but all he can think about it who was making Derek laugh, can they do it again, Dex just wants to hear it again and again—

He pushes Aidan off. “Why now?” Will asks, his chest heaving and his red hair a wreck from where Aidan had his hands in it.

“What?” The other boy replies breathlessly, reaching out for Dex again but being met with air.

“Why now? I begged you to take me back after you  _ cheated  _ on me, after you left me like I was nothing, and you said no. You said I was pathetic, and a mistake.” Aidan looks dumbfounded and Will’s voice keeps getting louder. “So why now?”

“You just, looked…”

“Happy.” Dex finishes in disbelief, pulling down his shirt. “I looked fucking happy and you weren’t the reason why so you wanted to ruin it.”

“Come on, Billy,” Aidan says, and he has that tone that used when he used to call Dex pathetic, and ugly, and— “We both know that’s fake. You? With him? His Mom alone is worth more than your whole family.” He says it in that way that used to mean Will would come running back to him, sputtering out apologies Aidan was not owed and crucifying himself to see another man walk free.

So maybe Samwell made him a rose, or maybe Samwell was the sun that helped him bloom, but he knows he is too beautiful, now. With shaking hands, Will takes a step forward. Aidan takes a step back. “I’m too good for you.” He says, forcing himself to stay upright as he makes his way towards the stairs. “How long have you known that?” He adds before walking towards the laughter. Before walking towards Derek.

Nursey is there, like an angel in the eclipse, laughing a fake laugh and taking long sips of something dark. Will wants to run to him, wants to tell him about how he used to wake up panting from dreams where Nursey made him poetry, wants to tell him how the universe would be lucky to see the inside of his heart, but, instead, he steadies his legs and makes his way to the center of the room, latching onto Nursey’s arm. “We should really get going, we told my Mom we were going to get chips.” He hopes his voice is shaking enough for Nursey to catch on. 

Derek furrows his eyebrows together but nods, waving a polite goodbye before leading Will out the front door and into the car.

-

The moment the door closes, Derek collapses into himself, shoulders hunching and smile dropping. “It makes me so tired, every time.” He says, more to himself than Dex. Will runs a hand over his spine, lets his fingers rise and fall with the knots along Nursey’s back. “Makes me feel like I’m in a zoo, all of them looking at me like that.” Derek whispers as he turns his head towards the car’s ceiling and breathes out once, shaky but whole. Dex places a hand over his, unsure of what else to do.

“I want to show you something.” Will says, and he starts the car and drives away from Aidan’s house for what he knows will be the last time.

Derek studies Will while he drives, watches the gentle movements of his hands and the way he doesn’t stutter before turning. He knows this town; Nursey can see it in the way his eyes go soft looking at certain spots.

Leaving home wasn’t easy for anyone, but if you had never had a home like this—a home with soft edges and fuzzy beginnings, with creaky swing sets and dingy diners—what did you know about leaving at all? What did Nursey know about leaving home?

Andover certainly hadn’t been one. Andover was him, behind a glass, under a microscope, open for public consumption but unable to fight back. He had tried, too. He had fought until his knuckles bled, until, one day, he just—couldn’t. He hears his moms talking about him the summer he stops fighting. He’s spent days sitting in his room, pulling threads out of the quilt his Abuela had made him when he was baby. “His eyes, Yadi.” Momma says, drawing in a deep breath. “There’s nothing there.” Her words get muffled as her wife pulls her into her chest. “What did they do to him? What did they do to our babies?”

She still uses the plural.

Maybe that hurts most of all.

The car stops, and Dex looks over at Nursey calmly. They’re parked in front of docks, most of them abandoned, but Will grabs Derek by the inside of his elbow and pulls him down one. Derek watches as Will pulls off his shoes, his honey red hair shining even in the night time.  _ Fire does not just belong to the sun;  _ Derek says to himself as Will rolls up his pants. Nursey follows suit, pushing up the ends of his joggers and popping off his sneakers. They sit down slowly, as if they’re both afraid of breaking something, and Derek laughs a little when Will winces as his feet lower into the water.

“It makes me mad,” Derek says after a while of the two of them sitting together in silence. “When people hurt people and I don’t know why.” Will creases his eyebrows together. “It doesn’t…make it any better when there’s a reason but when I know why…when I know why I can fix it. I can fix myself.” His voice cracks, and he looks into the water instead of at Dex, watching the way the water rippled until the wetness left his eyes and his vision unblurred.

“What’s broken?” Will asks, and he’s smiling so bright Derek’s surprised the moon hasn’t struck them down. Then, he looks down, and his face crumples. “Tell me what’s broken.” He whispers again after a long pause.

“I don’t know, most of the time.” Derek answers. Then, he smiles at Dex. “We’ll figure it out, though, yeah?” Will smiles halfheartedly and nods, looking back out onto the water.

“Do you…Do you know any other poems like the one you said before?” Will asks, without turning to face Nursey. Even in the dark like this, Derek can see the red on his cheeks. “It’s okay if you--”

“Not for a moment, William Poindexter, lovely old man,” Derek starts with a smile. Will lets himself smile back. “have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies, nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,” There’s nothing in his voice but warmth, and it makes Dex want to fill all the cracks in the world with Nursey, Nursey, Derek. “nor your thighs pure as Apollo's, nor your voice like a column of ash, old man,” Nursey says, his words rolling over the other boy and flattening him to wreck. He runs his hand up Will’s thigh and Dex feels it run down his spine. He leans in closer, but Derek’s still going. “beautiful as the mist, you moaned like a bird with its sex pierced by a needle.” He’s so close Will can smell the stale soda on his breath. “Enemy of the satyr, enemy of the vine, and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth.” Dex surges forward suddenly, brave with Nursey’s face turned towards the water instead of him. It’s a chaste kiss, juvenile and embarrassing, only Dex’s lips pressing against Nursey’s smooth cheek for a second before he turns back towards the lake, gripping the edge of the dock and briefly considering throwing himself into the water. His cheeks are on fire and his knuckles are white, because, Jesus—

Will turns to apologize at the same time Derek comes forward to kiss his cheeks, and it becomes more of a smashing of Derek’s lips against the corner of Will’s mouth than an actual, proper kiss, but Will beams anyway.

“You missed my cheek.” Dex breathes out, watching the water instead of Nursey as he forced his heart to stop pounding in his chest. Derek laughs, except, it’s one of those laughs that are just pushing air out through your nostrils in an amused way. Dex loves it anyway.

“Did I hurt you?” Derek asks, and when Will moves to shake his head, he smiles. “Want me to kiss it better?”

“I’ll push you into the fucking water, D.”

“Sure you will.” Derek answers, dopey. Will turns to looks forward because he doesn’t like the bubbles that keep coming up in his stomach when he looks at Nursey. “God, come here.” The other boy breathes out, grabbing Dex’s chin in his hand and pressing their lips together.

It feels like when Will used to take the waffles his Mom made and sop up as much syrup as he could. It was always too sweet, and he knew they didn’t have the money for him to get cavities, but, God, it was so good. He lets his hands float to Nursey’s waist, and he’s leaning forward, wanting all the cracks in the world to be filled with Nurse, Nursey, Derek, D, whoever. Whoever made him feel like waffles on Sunday morning. Derek pulls away first, slow, his eyes still half way closed when Dex opens his.

“How do you know?” Will blurts.

“How do I know what?” Derek replies, and he looks so calm, so happy.

“That we’ll be alright, that we’re not ruining everything, that--” Nursey laughs and Dex clamps his mouth shut.

“We’ll be okay.” Nursey moves a little closer but they’re still both facing the lake, and there’s still space between them as Nursey leans back to where he had been before. “Van Gogh said what is done is love is done well.” Dex softens as Derek places a warm hand over his. It’s not much, but it sends shivers through Dex’s body anyways.

“Let all that you do be done in love.” Will says.

“Who said that?”

“Corinthians.” Derek hums in amusement and Dex opens his hand so their fingers can lace together.

Nursey turns to smile at him.

_ “I didn’t know I had this much love in my heart,”  _ Dex wants to say _. “And this isn’t going to be easy but it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”  _ Instead, he just points at a constellation. “I’m 20% sure that’s the Little Dipper.” When he turns, Nursey is looking at him like he had heard what Dex had really wanted to say.

Having your mind read wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be.

-

Derek wakes up the next morning with his nose buried in a sea of red hair. His alarm is blaring in the background, cutting through the delicacy of the early morning. Will groans in Nursey’s arms, pulling him closer and pressing his face harder into Nursey’s chest, as if that would stop the alarm from continuing to go off. Derek smiles a little and reaches over to turn it off, squinting at the bright screen. “Shit,” He mutters when he sees the notification. Will groans again.

**5:00am: LEAVE FOR NY**

Dex pops up, letting his chin rest on Nursey’s chest. Derek allows himself to think of things he had never let himself think before. Allows himself to think that Dex looks soft, in the pinks and yellows of a freshly birthed sky. He looks soft and safe and that’s because of Nursey. A feeling, not unfamiliar but warmer than ever before, plants itself in the pit of Nursey’s stomach.

So this was love.

“Early,” Will grunts out, his voice rough and his hair sticking up all over the place. He’s forgotten to cut it, probably, and Derek runs a hand through it and smiles at him. “‘s too early to be gay, D.” He jokes, but there’s no ice in his voice, and he moves as Derek uncurls from around him and flattens against the bed, lifting up his head and placing his hands under his chin so it doesn’t dig into Derek’s chest as they reposition themselves.

“Never too early when I got you.” Derek replies calmly, rolling a lock of red hair between his thumb and his index finger. Will rolls his eyes, but he’s blushing and looking like he’s put it away somewhere in his brain, in a folder of things that made him happy. It’s too early for Derek to say he wants to live in that folder, right?

“You’re the worst.” Dex says, and Nursey’s alarm goes off again. **5:10: GET UP DICKHEAD!** Will peers at the screen and giggles a little.

“Hey, the me who sets my alarms and the real me are two different people.” Derek explains, running his hand up and down Will’s back gently, tracing patterns in the dip where his spine was. Will responds with a low hum, one that vibrates through Nursey’s shirt and skin. “I can’t write when I’m happy, you know.” He says as he feels Will’s skin under his fingertips. Will hums again. “My career will plummet fucking with you.” Derek jokes, and Dex laughs so loud that the bed shakes. Derek’s afraid they’ll wake the whole house.

“You should get up,” Dex says a minute or so later, his voice sounding like it was carrying words without his permission. “Or you’ll be late for your mom’s thing today.” Derek groans, but pulls his arm from under Will and rolls off the bed, trying not to flinch when his feet swing off the twin bed and onto the cold wood floor of the tiny room. Dex pushes against Nursey’s back with his hands, and Derek swats him away, slowly rising off the mattress.

“You’ll call me when you get home?” Dex asks, later, when Derek’s pulled on his last pair of clean sweatpants and kissed Will’s neck enough to make him giggle a little. Derek smiles, a smug thing that rules over the curves of his lips.

“Why? You’re worried about me?” Nursey asks, and Will rolls his amber eyes and pushes away from him, letting his boyfriend get into the car.

“I’m more worried for everyone else on the road.” Dex says, stepping closer to the car. It’s a little cold outside, because it’s only 6 in the morning, so he has on a sweatshirt and some boxers, the same ones he had slept in. Derek laughs, and there’s a lull where they both know Nursey should be pulling off and heading for the freeway, but Will is latched onto the door, peeking his head through the window and inspecting Nursey’s car. He’s killing time. “I’ll miss you.” He finally chokes out, and it’s so soft, for him, especially with how infantile their whole Thing was. Nursey has been a fucking sap since they kissed last night, but Dex had mainly been blushing and telling him to pay attention to the road, but never to stop. To Nursey, that was the most progress they would get this early on, but here was Dex, here was Will, the sun shining onto his face, his cheeks flushed and his eyelashes casting a dancer’s shadow on his cheeks.

And what can Derek say that will be enough? He wants to say,  _ “When my professor asked me to describe the color red everyone said anger and everyone said blood but I just wrote your name over and over and they didn’t understand I meant love, they thought you were red like fists but you’re red like my mother when her wife brings her home drunk and they’re giggling like lovesick teenagers, you’re red like the lipstick my Abuela used to wear, you’re red like the spots you get behind your eyes when you look at the sun or the snow too long and I don’t know how that’s possible. I don’t know how you’re possible.” _

Instead, Derek reaches through the window and pulls Will closer by his neck, reveling in the way he leans into it, feeling baptized in the morning sun and the loss of cautiousness as Dex’s hands feel up and down his jaw with rough thumbs. Will pulls away first, his lips pinker and his expression understanding.

_ “How do I explain that angels can be red, too?” _ Derek wants to say. Instead, “I’ll miss you, too, babe.”

Instead, he watches as Dex beams at the pet name and pulls his arms out of the car. He steps away, waving a little with a precocious smile on his face. “Call me, okay?” Derek nods, a little dazed, and forces the ache out of his fingertips as he starts the car and pulls away from the little house in Maine.

-

“Baby!” Derek’s Mom screams, running to meet him on the driveway even though she doesn’t have on any shoes and the tightness of her robe indicates she probably doesn’t have on that many clothes, either. She still has a scarf wrapped around her edges and Derek admires the box braids she got when he was away.

“Your scalp hurt?” He asks, and reaches down to lift up the edge of the scarf when his Mom swats him away, pulling him into her tiny arms instead. “Missed you, too.” He says into her hair, and she smells enough like home that he doesn’t feel weird when he breathes in deeply.

“Marie, dios mio, you can’t be running outside at all hours of the goddamn morning in a bathrobe, what--” His Ma pauses when she sees Derek, and smiles. “You’re back.” Derek nods and lets his Momma out of his hug, stepping towards the house. There’s always something in their voice when he comes back home, now, like they weren’t expecting it. Like every time is a surprise. “Well, papito, come inside, come on, the neighbors will think we’re crazy, you’ll catch a cold.”

“Ma, it’s 70 degrees.” Derek complains, but he walks through the front door anyway.

Maybe home wasn’t a place. If it was people, if home could be human beings, his moms are home. The way his Momma’s hair smells and the way his Ma’s voice sounds, still thick with a Bronx accent. The way they look together, like they’re still teenagers and nothing can hurt them. He remembers when they had visited Havana, vaguely, and his Ma had squeezed his hand and made everything okay.

“Missed you.” He says again, even though he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t even know who he’s talking to. He walks past the empty room next to his and breathes in through his nose.  _ “Miss you.”  _ He wants to whisper, but his mouth won’t let him form the words.

He collapses onto his bed instead, closing his eyes to the sound of the rest of the neighborhood waking up.

-

It’s 10 hours later and Nursey hasn’t called.

Dex doesn’t consider himself a possessive person, and it’s not like he wants to get the call so Nursey can give him his exact coordinates, but he just needs to know the boy got home safe, for God’s sake. He’s splayed out across his bed, looking at the plaster on the ceiling dance, when Leah bursts in the door. She’s the oldest in the house and the third oldest sister. “Grad school is hard,” she always says, “but not as hard as figuring out what the fuck I’m going to do after college.” Right now, she’s shutting Dex’s door and smiling like she knows something he doesn’t.

“Heard about the party.” She finally says, her light brown hair swinging as she shakes her head. “Why didn’t you tell us Derek was already your boyfriend?”

Dex almost says, “He’s not,” or “Shut up,” which is what he’s used to when people ask what’s up with him and Nurse, but instead, he smiles. “He wasn’t at first.” Will says. “We got together after the party.” Then he’s spilling his guts on the whole thing, because he had always wanted to have this, when he was younger. He wanted to jump in and talk about boys when his sisters talked about boys, always wanted a story to tell that made everyone in the room put their hand to their chest. Maybe he can’t tell stories in a way that makes you cry like Nursey can, but Will grew up hearing his sisters recount their days at the dinner table, and he knows how to move his hands and smile and change his voice so the words become more than words.

When he finishes, there’s a huge weight off his chest, and he feels like a lake after it’s dam was torn down. Leah has her hand over her mouth and a smile peeking from underneath her fingers. “Will,” She starts, and she might be crying. “You think he’s, like, the one?” Dex laughs.

“For now, yeah.” Will takes a deep breath in through his nose. “Yeah, he is.” Leah goes to say something else when Will’s phone starts ringing, a borderline horrific picture of Nursey appearing on his screen. Leah laughs and excuses herself, winking at him before closing the door again. “Hey, ugly.” Will says, and Derek’s laugh comes out kind of staticky, but it’s there and it makes Will’s heart grow.

“Hey, baby.” Derek answers, and his voice is kind of rolling, like it had sounded when he woke up this morning. Will is trying really hard not to swoon, and is suddenly very glad he’s laying down because he thinks his knees are a little weak. “Sorry I didn’t call; I fell asleep as soon as I got here.”

“It’s okay.” Will says. There’s a pause in the conversation because they’ve never really done  _ this  _ before, been boyfriends talking on the phone. How do healthy boyfriends talk to each other? Dex doesn’t know.

“Do you wanna Skype or something? I wanna, like, see you.” Will’s face heats up and he pulls on his earlobe, a tick he picked up from his Dad.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Dex answers, and he’s staring at Nursey’s face on his laptop screen about fifteen minutes later. “Damn, you’re still ugly.”

“I am?” Derek says, feigning horror and laughing. Dex giggles.

“I’m afraid so.” Will jokes, pretending to be solemn. “You’re very lucky to have someone such as myself here for you.”

“I know.” Nursey answers, and the grin on his face has turned into a little smile, like he’s so warm inside and so happy in his heart that he can’t keep it in. Will really isn’t made for this. He really doesn’t think he’ll make it.

“Well, believe it or not, I miss your ugly ass.” Will sighs, staring at the corner of his laptop instead of at the Skype window. Still, he knows Nursey is smiling.

“Yeah?” Derek says. “My ugly ass misses you, too, ya amar.”

“How many languages do you speak, huh?” Will almost yells, because he’s actually a little mad at the way the heat is rising under his collar.

“I’m international.” Then, through a laugh, “Mr. Worldwide.”

Dex groans.

-

@ _ katiepoindexter _ : I need to get like Dex tbh

@ _ willjdexter _ : @ _ katiepoindexter _ huh? Lol

@ _ katiepoindexter _ : @ _ willjdexter _ need to get me a man with a nice jawline and build…

@ _ dmnurse _ : @ _ katiepoindexter _ @ _ willjdexter _ [blushing emoji 3x]

-

**kill will**   
I hate you   
Just so you know

**DMN**   
thanks baby

**kill will**   
You’re welcome [der bear]

-

_ @dmnurse _ : idk why people act like telling the other people you fw that you got somebody is so bad

_ @dmnurse _ : it’s the best feeling to me

-

“You should come to New York.” Derek says a week or so later, fiddling with his thumbs on Skype. It’s one of those times where Will’s been rambling about nothing, just because it always feels like Nursey is listening, like he cares and wants to hear about Leah stealing Will’s sweatpants and Kinsey throwing a raw chicken at Katie. Derek’s just been sitting there, for the most part, smiling when he’s supposed to and gasping at the climax of the stories. He’s been writing, too, but Dex knows better than to ask to read it. Dex stops talking and freezes.

“What?” Will asks.

“You don’t have to meet my parents or anything, they’ll probably be out of town.” Will doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “You don’t have to, I was just saying—”

“I’ve never been to New York before.” Dex admits after another moment. Derek looks at him in disbelief. Will rolls his eyes and smiles in a way he knows make Derek a little lightheaded. “Will you show me around, baby?”

“Y-yeah.” Nursey stutters out, his cool demeanor from moments before shattered. “Of course I can, yeah, I—” Derek laughs, attempting to sound relaxed, but his throat looks like it’s tightening and his voice is wavy, not solid. He licks his lips and looks Dex in the eyes, a sudden change in body language that makes Will’s heart race a little. “I really do miss you, amorito.”

“I miss you, too,” Will replies quietly, because just the way Derek is looking at him, like there’s a couple moons Will doesn’t know about stashed in his own amber eyes, like God put him on this Earth just to love and be loved, like everything begins and ends here. “Hey, not to be gay, but, like...do you ever feel like we were meant to be?” Derek looks surprised.

“That is gay,” He pauses. “But yeah. I do.”

Will beams. “I know!” He almost screams, before reminding himself that most of his house is asleep. “It’s like everything leads back to you and there’s nothing I could’ve done to stop it.” He gets quieter and looks off to the side somewhere. “I wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway.”

“What did you say?” Nursey asks incredulously, like he can’t comprehend what Dex is saying.

“Everything leads back to you?” Will raises an eyebrow. Nursey smiles like he knows something Dex doesn’t and nods.

“It does.”

-

**kill will**

I’m outside

 

**DMN**

good

i’m coming baby

 

Will looks up at the hardwood door, then at the house surrounding it. The brownstone is towering, and old, probably made at the same time as Will’s house was, but he knows it’s more expensive and the white lime build up that covers the bricks outside Will’s house are nowhere to be found on Nursey’s. Even the steps are pristine, except for some cobwebs in the corner. For some reason, Will starts thinking about how many kids could live here, and what would Nursey like to name his kids, Will had never asked, and maybe—

Derek appears in the doorway like an angel out of thin air, in soccer pants and a sweatshirt. He smiles and something sings in Will’s stomach that leaves him flailing. “It’s summer.” Dex says, looking over Nursey’s outfit. Nursey reaches down to take his bags and walks into the house, looking behind himself to make sure Will was following.

“It’s my Momma, she loves to keep the AC on, like, 1000.” Derek explains as they walk up the steps. Will feels like he did something wrong, because Derek hasn’t looked him in the eye more than once this whole time. When they’re almost to the top of the staircase, Derek drops the bags he’s carrying and turns around suddenly, making Will take a step down. “Come here,” Derek breathes out, taking his boyfriend’s face in his hands and leaning down to kiss him. After the shock wears off, Dex kisses back, taking a step up so they’re on the same stair. So they’re even again.

Kissing Dex is like when Nursey was a kid and he used to play the scene in Jennifer’s Body where Megan Fox burns her tongue over and over, he feels like he’s holding a lighter inside his mouth moments after guzzling gasoline and by the grace of the most High, he is not burning alive. Will’s kisses feel like a blessing and if Nursey was Christian he’s sure his baptism would’ve felt just like the moment he presses Will into the wall of the stairway. He’s sure he’s founded a new religion.

Will breaks away and looks in Derek’s eyes for a second, before kissing him again, briefly. “Upstairs,” He says, pulling Derek toward the top of the steps. Nursey kisses Will’s hand as he grabs it to be led, and Dex giggles, his bags forgotten somewhere in the middle of the stairs.

-

“You’re gay,” Derek says, poking Will’s foot. They’re laying on Nursey’s bed watching TV, Derek’s head on his pillow and Will spread out opposite him, over his left leg. His pale feet are by Derek’s head, and if Nursey wasn’t so in love, he’d be disgusted.

“I know, baby.” Will replies, because it’s the fourth time he’s said this in 10 minutes, and Will is really trying to figure out the plot of whatever it is they’re watching.

“Do you? Do you really know?” Will giggles and Nursey does, too, tugging on his boyfriend’s leg. “Come up here.” Dex moves, groaning as he swings a leg over Nursey’s crotch to straddle his waist. Nursey brings his hands up to rest on Dex’s hips and smiles, slow and lazy, like God left all the extra time in the world for them.

“Come right here?” Will asks, running his hands over his boyfriend’s chest. Derek laughs.

“Can you do it on command like that?” Derek asks, feeling on Dex’s left thigh and letting his fingers graze over the goosebumps.

“If you ask me to, I will.” Dex answers, almost like a reflex, and Derek looks like he’s gotten the wind knocked right out of him. He licks his lips and leans forward just as a robotic voice fills the speakers of his room.

_ “Front door.” _

Derek groans. “My moms are home.” Will pales and slides from on top of Nursey and onto the bed, anxiety clouding his head. “Hey, they’re gonna love you, baby.”

_ Like I do,  _ Derek wants to say. Instead, he places a gentle kiss to Will’s temple and stands up to lead him downstairs.

-

Turns out, Nursey’s parents aren’t as scary as Will had thought they would be. (“Told you so,” Derek whispers to him in the middle of dinner. Will rolls his eyes.)

“So, you’re majoring in computer science?” Yadira asks. Nursey calls her Ma, and she looks just like him even though Marie, who Nursey calls Momma, had carried him. Dex has been making a mental map of everything, and is shook out of his trance by the question.

“Oh, um, yeah!” Will replies, before cringing at how juvenile it sounded.

“Aw, you seem excited about it, baby. That’s good.” Marie offers, and Dex adds that Nursey must get his seemingly endless pet names from her to the mental map. “Plus, we’ll finally have another nerd in the family, yeah? Derek, he’s a real…” Marie searches for the right word. “He expresses himself.”

“That’s code for he talks too damn much.” Yadira adds, her Bronx accent hiding behind the voice she was putting on. Nursey groans and Dex laughs and everything is okay. They’re whole in a way that Dex isn’t used to.

“So, will William be staying in your room, Derek?” Nursey chokes on his food.

“Uh, yeah.” Yadira and Marie share a look, and Dex hurries to fix it.

“I can stay down here on the couch, or sleep on the floor,” He flounders for a second. “Oh! I could stay in the guest room!”

Derek laughs. “We don’t have a guest room, baby.”

Will shakes his head. “Yeah you do, upstairs. It’s a room at the end of the hall and it’s all empty.” Usually, when Will is right about something, Derek rolls his eyes and kisses his freckled forehead softly, a nice way of telling Dex that Derek didn’t really care if he was right or not. Their arguments were mainly for show now, so Derek didn’t get riled up like he used to. Dex liked that.

That’s how he knew he hadn’t been right about what he had said.

The table, the room, the house, the whole city goes still. It’s like Dex has popped a balloon and everyone in the lunch room is silent, trying to see if it was a gunshot or not. Will tries to look at Derek for help understanding what it is he said, but no one will look at him. Marie picks at her dinner, and Yadira is staring at the wall behind Nursey’s head like she’ll win a prize if she doesn’t look away. Derek is just — stuck. Like he ran out of batteries, or something.

“That’s not a guest room.” Yadira finally says. “We don’t go in there.” Marie slides her chair back and whispers an “excuse me,” and Yadira follows a few seconds later.

Dex sits in silence for a few tender moments before growing back into himself. Then, Will grabs Nursey’s hand and turns it inside out to kiss the skin on the border of his palm. Nursey stares at the wall until he grows back into Derek, and when he does, he looks Will in the eyes. “We don’t go in there.” Derek repeats, except his voice is cracking and his eyes are watering and his hands have started shaking.

When Will pulls Derek into his chest, he sobs.

-

“I was eleven.” Derek finally says, when the sun has gone down and they’re smoking weed on the balcony.

(Yadira had crept in, earlier, and whispered an apology. Her eyes were soft in a way that didn’t seem possible when you first saw her.)

“And I spent the whole day with my brother, because he was going off to college soon and I was gonna miss him so much.” Derek says. “So he took me out of school and we went to the movies in the middle of the day. He took me out for dinner and we started driving home.” Derek doesn’t speak for a long minute, before taking another hit (that was, like, 4 in one turn, but Will wasn’t about to scold him on the rules of smoking together) and passing the blunt over. “We started driving home and the sun was setting and everything was so beautiful—and the next thing I know our car is going off the road. So I’m reaching out for my brother, but I’m only eleven, you know?” Derek doesn’t pause for Will to answer. “I can’t save a life when I barely have mine. And there’s blood sprayed all over the dashboard, so I look into the rearview mirror — it’s all cracked up — and I see there’s blood all over me. And my brother is dead. And I start screaming and when my moms see me they scream, too.”

_ I still hear them screaming,  _ Derek wants to say.  _ My brother got shot in the head in August and my heart died in September and my mothers have screamed every summer since. _

_ I read a book where a mom left her son to go be with the man she loved across the lake. The mom took the boy’s older sister, and when he realized his mom was leaving him behind, he started running after her. And he fell but he got up, and he kept running, and he caught up. And the mom took his hands when he reached her on the wagon. And she threw him back to the ground. And he said something in him broke.  _ Derek wants to say, but he’s really just staring at the ground because if he looks up the whole world is going to come crashing down.  _ When they told me brother died, it felt like I had been trying to catch up to Allah, and when I finally looked him in the eyes, he abandoned me. _ He would pause. _ I hit the asphalt on the road and the sun covered me to my knees and something in me broke. Something in me is broken. _

Instead, softly, “They meant to shoot the people on the other side of us.” Nursey stares out at the sky, at all of the lights and all of the ways they dance, and then he closes his eyes. When his broad shoulders begin to shake, Will wraps an arm softly around his boyfriend’s neck and sits up on his knees so he can kiss the top of Derek’s head.

Derek falls into it, collapsing like a tower made of sand, his eyes squeezing closed tighter and hand flying up to grip Will’s forearm. “I’m right here.” Will says into Derek’s curls and Derek cries harder. “I’m gonna stay right here, baby.”

The sun rises slow in front of them, even after Derek’s tears have put him to sleep in Will’s arms.

-

“Show me New York.” Will says the next morning, after the light of noon has shaken Derek awake. (He had looked so gentle in his sleep, small in a way hockey player’s usually weren’t, and strong in that way he always was.) Derek groans, throwing an arm over his puffy eyes.

“I gotta headache, baby.” Will pulls at Derek’s arm until he lifts it up just enough to show Dex his eyes. Then, he smiles. “You’re so pretty in the morning.” Derek says, reaching out his other arm to push back Will’s matted ginger hair.

“Oh, no, I’m not, but my boyfriend? He could look like an angel during the apocalypse.” Will answers, staring at Derek fondly. Nursey’s smile widens, and he leans up to kiss his boyfriend, a soft and yellow pushing together of lips. Will hums into it, and when they break apart, he says, “Your breath stinks,” with a scrunched up face and a smile betraying his supposed disgust.

“You stink.” Derek replies, before kissing him again.

“You stink.” Will mocks, making his voice deeper. Derek laughs, loud enough to disrupt the peace of the morning, and Will smashes a hand over his mouth, giggling. “Stop, your moms are gonna wake up!”

-

Everything becomes everything, that summer. Here, Dex is whole again, a rose sitting in the sun and not curling into itself in the heat of an overwhelming love. Here, Nursey is Derek, shaking hands and days without eating, but passion so great it threatens to swallow them both whole. They have an forever eighteen year old brother watching over them from Paradise, and they have love. They have their homes that aren’t houses and their lights.

Everything has always been leading back to here.

**Author's Note:**

> hey gays! i've been working on this for a super long time, so i'm really glad to share it with all of you! leave a comment if u can (they mean more than u know), thank u so much for reading! [ ten million heart emojis ]
> 
> (and, if ur feeling lucky, u can always come talk to me @ dereknursey on tumblr. also, i'm trying to save up money to go to a creative writing camp - in new york??? i'm a small midwestern girl - and my p*yp*l is okayzari@gmail.com. i also do writing c*mmissions, which u can read about [here.](http://radioh.tumblr.com/post/147738012370/hey-yall-i-decided-to-open-up-commissions-for-my) thank u all again!)


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